| An infinite God ought to be able to protect himself, without going in partnership with State Legislatures. —Robert Green Ingersoll |
Torture and American Christianity December 25, 2007
Posted by Rastaban in : Bushwacked, Christianity, Civil Unliberties, Ethics & Morality, Religion, Torture , 5 commentsDecember 25, the holiday long celebrated as the birthday of the Unconquered Sun, but more recently as the birthday of Jesus Christ, the central figure in Christianity. Jesus is generally presented as a pacifist, author of the sermon on the mount with its beatitudes (”blessed are the peacemakers…”), but more recently his followers in America find it preferable not to love their enemies but to torture them.
These Christians, who generally call themselves evangelicals and fundamentalists because they take the fundamental tenets of their religion seriously, have managed to become powerful enough to dominate the Republican party and in 2000 they elected* one of their own as President of the United States. Within a year, this very Christian President began laying out plans for torturing his enemies.
Christianity and torture have, unfortunately, a long historical association. Indeed, the Spanish Inquisition perfected many of the most famous torture techniques, including waterboarding. You might think that Christians would be eager to strand Christianity’s associations with torture in the distant middle ages. You would think wrongly. Under the champion of Christianity residing in the White House, torture of prisoners became the official policy** of the U. S. Government. (more…)
Bush, Christinsanity & Torture February 12, 2005
Posted by Rastaban in : Bushwacked, Christinsanity, Religion, Torture , add a commentIn her New Yorker article, Outsourcing Torture, Jane Mayer has thrown a window open to ‘the secret history of American’s “extraordinary rendition” program’ in which the United States Government has become a collaborator in an international torture ring.
“Extraordinary rendition” Bob Herbert writes bluntly in the New York Times “is one of the great euphemisms of our time.”
“Extraordinary rendition is the name that’s been given to the policy of seizing individuals without even the semblance of due process and sending them off to be interrogated by regimes known to practice torture. In terms of bad behavior, it stands side by side with contract killings.
Our henchmen in places like Syria, Egypt, Morocco, Uzbekistan and Jordan are torturing terror suspects at the behest of a nation - the United States - that just went through a national election in which the issue of moral values was supposed to have been decisive. How in the world did we become a country in which gays’ getting married is considered an abomination, but torture is O.K.?” —from “Torture, American Style” by Bob Herbert, N.Y. Times Op-Ed, Feb 11, 2005
The answer, Mr. Herbert, is called Christinsanity. (more…)
